Tamil Movie Review: Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa

Based on what I been hearing from family and friends, this movie directed by Gautham Menon (who also directed the excellent Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu) seems to be THE Tamil movie of the year.

And due to this, my wife has been pestering me to take her to watch it and we finally watched it couple days ago. And after watching the 2 over hours movie, I am left with the question – what is Gautham is trying to say in this movie? There was nothing to shout about this movie and there are much, much better Tamil movies than this one.

Despite the key characters trying their best to get together in the first half of the movie, there is an overwhelming feeling that all that efforts have been “wasted” when in the end, the key characters departed and go on their own ways.

So, what is the point here? What is the moral of the story here? What is the ideals that Gautham wants to us to take note from this movie?

If you had watched Gautham’s previous movies – there is a specific theme to it. For example, in Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu and earlier Kakka Kakka, Gautham brought in a fresh breath into how the police and their investigations should be portrayed in a movie. There was something different in his movies but this time, something seems to be missing.

The plot is a big let-down – nothing fantastic. Yes, it is entertaining and for young lovers, brings in the mood but for matured adult viewers, there is just a blank feeling at the end of the movie.

(Trisha looks so natural in this movie – Gautham should have come up with a better storyline. Image source: http://www.indiaglitz.com)

The Directorship

Gautham treaded on a safe but overused storyline – boy meets a girl, girl rejects the boy, boy tries hard to win over the girl, girl almost get married but had a change of mind, girl love the boy but in the end, the boy and the girl get separated and the story ends.

However it being a Gautham directed movie, one can expect some “freshness” to the same old story. Good picturisation of the background scene during the song scenes is simply excellent.

The picturisation of the songs is simply remarkable and they complete the magic.

God knows how Goutham gets his ideas and the eye of Manoj Paramahamsa who’s done ‘Eeram’ before, not just his eye that thought of those exotic locations but his ‘lens eye’ as well that caught all those beautiful locales.

Watch those videos even with half opened eyes and you’ll realize he hasn’t used a camera but a paint brush with the palette of colours from Mother Nature.

But other than song picturisations, there is nothing much to shout about in the movie – it is pretty lame and standard compared to other standard Tamil movies.

Silambarasan and Trisha acted as the 2 main characters but whilst Trisha looks so natural in this movie, Silambarasan on the other hand looks out of place.

It would be been more matching if Arya (who was so natural and had good chemistry with Trisha in Sarvam) or Madhavan (who acted in Gautham’s initial romance movie – Minnale) had acted instead. Silambarasan, no doubt is an experienced actor but in this movie, he looked too bland and too old to play the character of a young lover looking for his love.

Overall, acting wise – there is no major hiccups but at the same time, nothing specatular. Trisha edges Silambarasan when it comes to acting. Another character in the movie, Ganesh (acted by Ganesh Janardhanan) provide the laughs in this movie and I loved the part when Ganesh and Karthik (Silambarasan) went to Kerala looking for Jessie (Trisha) and got invited by Jessie’s family members and Ganesh struggles with the language. That was funny indeed.

(One thing that Gautham excels than the rest and is brilliant – picturisation of songs. Get AR Rahman involved and you will get best song scenes around. Image source: http://www.indiaglitz.com)

The Music

The music for this movie was composed by the Oscar winner AR Rahman and as usual, he excels at the end. One thing about AR Rahman’s music is that one will not get the rhythm at the beginning but after several listening, only then one can appreciate the greatness of AR Rahman’s composition.

When I heard the Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa music track for the first time, I pretty much hate it. I thought after Slumdog Millionaire, AR Rahman has lost it. Out of the 7 or so songs, I thought only 1 song was good enough for my “best of the best” compilation. Thankfully my son corrected my mistake – he kept humming some of the songs from the movie and that got me stuck. I went back and listened again and I realised that all the songs under the track was really good – 5 of the songs is now in my “best of the best” compilation.

Hosana has to be the best among all the songs in the movie and it is a favourite with my son too.

Final say

The plus points: Music, background and song picturisation

The negative points: Over used, over beaten storyline and “no lesson learned” plot